Kenneth Fisher

My name is Kenneth Fisher and I am Senior DBA for a large (multi-national) insurance company. I have been working with databases for over 20 years starting with Clarion and Foxpro. I’ve been working with SQL Server for 12 years but have only really started “studying” the subject for the last 3. I don’t have any real "specialities" but I enjoy trouble shooting and teaching. Thus far I’ve earned by MCITP Database Administrator 2008, MCTS Database Administrator 2005, and MCTS Database Developer 2008. I’m currently studying for my MCITP Database Developer 2008 and should start in on the 2012 exams next year. My blog is at https://sqlstudies.com/.

Finding active DTS packages

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

DTS is dead, long live SSIS. Way back when SQL 2005 was announced then released DTS was pronounced DOA. SSIS...

2013-12-09 (first published: 2013-11-27)

3,175 reads

Undocumented functionality in FORMATMESSAGE

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I was reading a rather interesting post on stackexchange “Why is % a forbidden char in a THROW message?” (which is...

2013-12-09

1,485 reads

Insert into a table using only default values

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

A while back I talked about the DEFAULT keyword and using it to tell SQL to use the default value...

2013-12-04

1,012 reads

Why do DBAs like to say “It Depends” so much?

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

Well the short answer is that they just don’t have enough information to give a definitive answer. You will notice...

2013-12-02

644 reads

Finding the metadata for a query

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

You know I occasionally find it interesting how I learn new things. I was running through a practice test for...

2013-11-25

2,267 reads

A pattern to do beginning of period calculations.

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

Beginning of period calculations are common things. Rolling month reports, queries to pull everything from last month etc require beginning...

2013-11-20

754 reads

Connection options in SSMS

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

When connecting to a SQL Server instance in SSMS there are a fair number of options. Most DBAs I know...

2013-11-18

1,546 reads

Who’s on call

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

Every morning we have a daily meeting and my manager asks who’s on call. And every morning some form of...

2013-11-13

589 reads

A better way to find missing indexes

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

I recently attended SQL Saturday #255 and specifically the performance tuning pre-con put on by Grant Fritchey. It was a...

2013-11-11

931 reads

sp_SrvPermissions & sp_DBPermissions V3.0

by Kenneth Fisher

SQLStudies

These are a couple of stored procedures I wrote to help me with security research. Each sp returns three data...

2013-11-11 (first published: 2013-11-04)

1,850 reads

Blogs

SQL Training Black Friday Deals

By Brian Kelley

If you're looking for particular "Black Friday" deals, here is what I've seen advertised...

Dry-run xp_delete_file Before Actually Deleting Files?

Dry-run xp_delete_file Before Actually Deleting Files? xp_delete_file doesn’t really have a...

Happy Thanksgiving! (USA Holiday)

By Brian Kelley

In the United States, today is Thanksgiving. The intent behind the holiday is to...

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Forums

FinOps - the new name for performance tuning

Comments posted to this topic are about the item FinOps - the new name...

Which Object Definitions Are Available?

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Which Object Definitions Are Available?

What's Your Theme Music?

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item What's Your Theme Music?

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Question of the Day

Which Object Definitions Are Available?

For which of these object types can I get the code when I run the OBJECT_DEFINITION() function in SQL Server 2025? (choose 3)

See possible answers